Ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. This web site is my attempt to document, from my perspective, these "interesting times".

Saturday, June 07, 2003

Democratic wimps

I just found this William Raspberry column from last week. It's a few days old, but I want to hilight it because it demonstrates clearly why the Democrats continue to wimp out on us:
Conservative Republicans continue to set the national agenda. Right-wing media set the tone of the (often nasty) debate. And moderates -- liberals have all but decamped -- don't know what to do about it.
Part of it is the Democrats' own fault, of course. They lost an election that should have been theirs on a gimme, requiring, for instance, only that their standard-bearer carry his home state -- or that the Supreme Court stay out of the matter. I mention that for a reason. Imagine, if you will, the same airtight campaign with the prize going to the Democrats, helped out publicly by officials sworn to neutrality. The airwaves would crackle with cries of righteous indignation and accusations of illegitimacy. The Republicans -- most certainly conservative Republicans -- wouldn't have let the matter die.
The Democrats did.
And while I'm glad they did -- we've strife enough without the sort of endless jabbing and rabble-rousing the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson promised to lead after the Supreme Court's delivery of the election to the Republicans -- it might serve as an illustration of the differences between the two parties.
Here we see the problem in a nutshell: even those Democrats who acknowledge the nature of the problem, that Democrats are wimpier then Republicans when it comes to fighting back, still think it is better not to fight back in order to preserve some illusion of civility.
I'm sorry Mr. Raspberry but we left civility beaten and broken far back on the road and it was the Republicans who did the dirty deed. I see no reason to continue to maintain the illusion that it didn't happen. It's as if you think that somehow, by being all nicey-nice, the Democrats can lead the rest of the country by example.
That dog won't hunt Mr. Raspberry. You go on to decry the compromising nature of the Democrats, but you completely fail to understand that it is your own attitude that it is a good thing that the Democrats don't fight back that is at the heart of that compromising nature.
You are a wimp Mr. Raspberry. An intelligent and thoughtful wimp. A wimp who understands how fucked up things are right now. But a wimp none the less.